Anti-Israel “peace” conference in Paris today to pursue a non-viable two-state solution

January 14, 2017

Representatives of 72 countries (but not of Israel or Palestine) will  meet at the French-hosted “peace” conference starting in Paris today. Even John Kerry will attend. But the two-state solution they seek can never work. It is essentially an anti-Israel (even if not all participants are anti-Semitic) conference which will seek to “impose”  a stop to settlements and promote a two-state solution. It may even be followed up  with some new resolution against Israel next week before the Obama administration exits the stage. In fact some think that the peace conference itself may produce a document which Kerry signs, and which contains text that tries to preempt any future US actions supporting Israel.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have been invited to come to France after the conference to learn of its conclusions, the French news agency AFP reported. Netanyahu, who has criticized the process, saying only direct negotiations between the two parties will be effective, has said he will not travel to Paris.

The Obama/Clinton, Obama/Kerry catastrophes in the Middle East have been particularly spectacular. (As of writing the Syrian cease fire is still holding and that is thanks to first, the absence of US involvement and second, the cooperation between Turkey, Russia and Iran). The Paris meeting may be the culmination of 8 years of failed US Middle East policy.

AP writes:

The Obama administration’s eight years of unsuccessful Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy will come to a crashing end this weekend, with chances for a Mideast peace deal at perhaps their lowest ebb in a generation. A Paris peace conference attended by Secretary of State John Kerry isn’t expected to produce any tangible progress.

At a time when President-elect Donald Trump’s administration is promising a fundamental shift toward Israel, the State Department said Kerry was only participating in the French-hosted event to ensure America’s interest in a two-state solution to the conflict is preserved. The blunt statement reinforced the dwindling hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough.

Kerry “feels obliged to be there because we have an interest in advancing a two-state solution, and we also have an interest in ensuring that whatever happens in this conference is constructive and balanced,” department spokesman Mark Toner said. …….

Kerry’s biggest decision in Paris may be a political one: Whether to sign the concluding document if it includes a specific warning to Trump against moving the embassy. The Palestinians, Arab nations and others are pushing the issue, fearing the U.S. move could spark a new conflagration in an already inflamed region. French officials say the warning could be in the document.

Kerry’s signature would be a shot across the bow of Trump’s foreign policy and further undercut President Barack Obama’s promises for a smooth transition of power. Republicans and even many Democratic lawmakers reacted angrily to the administration’s U.N. vote in December and a subsequent speech by Kerry on the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. The House of Representatives even condemned the Security Council resolution.

Israel is bracing for a new U.S. policy. On Friday, the West Bank settlers’ council said it will send a delegation to Trump’s presidential inauguration next week after receiving an invitation.

To find a solution requires the game to be changed.

I think it is time to abandon the two-state solution. A one state solution (which would have an inbuilt Palestinian majority) is also a non starter. But a single Federalist state containing a number of semi-autonomous states, and where the Jewish majority states structurally would outnumber the Muslim majority states could be a way out. For example 2 West Bank states with Muslim majorities, Gaza with a Muslim majority and 5 Jewish majority states could then give 8 states in a Federal configuration. The autonomy of the individual states could be similar to that of the US states.

A Federal Israel? with 5 Jewish and 3 Muslim states?

A Federal Israel? with 5 Jewish and 3 Muslim states?


Primordial belief

January 13, 2017

Take all our conscious thoughts about ourselves and the world around us to be either in the realm of knowledge or of ignorance. Take also that what lies in the space of knowledge is true. Then what lies in the space of ignorance may be true or false or both or neither. It is only within the space of ignorance that a “belief” can exist where that “belief” is then a possible truth. Take also that “science” is the process by which some of the “beliefs” within the space of ignorance are shown to be truths and thereby come into the space of knowledge. Knowledge is transferable between humans only if the recipient “believes” that the person transmitting the knowledge is transmitting the truth.

Much of what I take to be “knowledge” is not actually known to me but which I take to be known to others and part of the body of “human knowledge”.  I take the earth to be an oblate spheroid, not because I have personally observed that, but because I “believe” the many humans who have made the observation and brought that “true” statement into the body of human knowledge.

Most of what we therefore consider to be “our” knowledge is actually somebody else’s knowledge and not “known” to ourselves. However our belief in these persons leads to us claiming that knowledge as our own as being part of the body of knowledge available to humanity. The longer some statement has been within the body of knowledge, the stronger is our belief in that statement. Most of our actions are based then, not on our own personal knowledge, but on the belief that whatever lies within the body of knowledge of humanity is true.

But it strikes me that there is an assumption, a belief, which underlies every thought, every perception. This “primordial belief” is in fact implicit in every living thing. In fact it is so intrinsically intertwined with life that it may well be a part of the definition of what life is. This “primordial belief” is that the flow of time is unhindered and that a future exists. I breathe because there is future to breathe for. I cannot know when I take a breath that there will not be another one. Every living thing – a cell, a microbe, a virus, a tree or a human –  does what it does because there is a future (explicitly or implicitly) it believes it can live in. Even the very last breath I take will be taken in the belief that there will be another one to come. A belief in my future is existential.

A belief in a future is inherent in life. There can be a future without life (and there probably will be), but there is no form of life which does not have an implicit belief in its own future.

So every conscious mind (and that includes atheists, agnostics, religious fanatics, scientists and even economists) has this primordial, fundamental belief that a future exists. That, that future exists, can not be within the space of knowledge. All religions exist in the space of ignorance. But long before any of the “beliefs” they adopt comes the primordial belief that every living thing has  – that it has a future.


 

Did Jeb Bush commission the Trump fake report? and was it “laundered” by John McCain?

January 12, 2017

Fake news needs “laundering” for it to gain legs.

The Obama birther story was first started by Hillary Clinton’s supporters when she was standing against him in the Democratic primaries in 2008. It then took on a life of its own.

Now it seems the fake and scurrilous report about Donald Trump may have been commissioned from a former British intelligence officer as part of Jeb Bush’s efforts during the Republican primaries. To make it even more intriguing it may be that the fake report was passed through John McCain to the FBI – a sort of “laundering” of fake news to give it a semblance of authority. Whether McCain did it knowingly or was duped into the laundering exercise is unknown.

Of course CNN then played their part in “laundering” the fake news though that involvement is very likely intentional.

Reuters:

Christopher Steele, who wrote reports on compromising material Russian operatives allegedly had collected on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, is a former officer in Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, according to people familiar with his career.

Former British intelligence officials said Steele spent years under diplomatic cover working for the agency, also known as MI-6, in Russia and Paris and at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. After he left the spy service, Steele supplied the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with information on corruption at FIFA, international soccer’s governing body. It was his work on corruption in international soccer that lent credence to his reporting on Trump’s entanglements in Russia, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. ……

……. Steele was initially hired by FusionGPS, a Washington, DC-based political research firm, to investigate Trump on behalf of unidentified Republicans who wanted to stop Trump’s bid for the GOP nomination. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported that Steele was initially hired by Jeb Bush, one of Trump’s 16 opponents in the 2016 Republican primary. It was not immediately possible to verify the BBC’s report. ……

He was kept on assignment by FusionGPS after Trump won the nomination and his information was circulated to Democratic Party figures and members of the media. 

Steele’s dealings with the FBI on Trump, initially with the senior agent who had started the FIFA probe and then moved to a post in Europe, began in July. However, Steele cut off contact with the FBI about a month before the Nov. 8 election because he was frustrated by the bureau’s slow progress.  

And then we have McCain’s involvement.

Breitbart: 

Wednesday on CNN addressing media reports that he had turned over a dossier containing unverified claims about Russia and President-elect Donald Trump, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said, “I don’t know if it’s credible or not but I thought the information deserved to be delivered to the FBI, the appropriate agency of government.”

Partial transcript as follows:

MCCAIN: After looking at that information I took it to the FBI and have had no further involvement with it at issue. By the way, according to some media reports they already had that information, but I didn’t know that at the time. I did what any citizen would do, received sensitive information and then handed it over to the proper government agency and had nothing else to do with it.

Very commendable on the face of it but unlikely to be as innocent as all that.


 

CNN and Buzzfeed (fake news and garbage) have just shot themselves

January 12, 2017

“CNN and Buzzfeed” go together like “fake news and garbage”.

Buzzfeed provides the raw, unsorted garbage and CNN gives it the fake “news” label. But in their eagerness to attack Trump (CNN well deserves the label of being the “Clinton News Network”) they may have just provided Trump with all the justification he needs to sanction them. As lobby groups they really can no longer be considered “News Media”. They have dissipated and no longer deserve the protection that is due to journalistic activity since they have are engaged, now, primarily in advocacy rather than journalism. There are many other advocacy groups masquerading as purveyors of objective news. But most others provide a mix of advocacy and journalism. CNN sticks out as being particularly far removed from genuine journalism. CNN, from my own observations, has been consistently guilty of “politically correct” propaganda at least since the first Gulf War with the elder Bush. To my mind Blitzer (especially) and Amanpour and Tapper and their like are fatally tainted as journalists. At least Zakaria is openly a leftist advocate and does not pretend to be a journalist. CNN lost its objectivity and the skepticism necessary for quality journalism a long time ago.

This time they may have shot themselves in a much more vital area than the foot.

“CNN is fake news”

has a ring of truth about it.

This from Politico which is not particularly friendly to Trump though it has not been quite as rabid and shameless in its “politically correct” propaganda as CNN and WaPo and HuffPo

Politico: 

The best thing that happened to Donald Trump all week is that BuzzFeed published the raw Russia dossier about him.

It can’t be pleasant for anyone to see his name associated with prostitutes and a bizarre sex act in print, not even Donald Trump, who presumably has a higher tolerance for this kind of thing than the average human being, since he has lived and thrived knee-deep in tabloid muck for decades. But in the media’s ongoing fight with Donald Trump, BuzzFeed’s incredible act of journalistic irresponsibility represented the press leading with its chin. ……… 

……. BuzzFeed played right into his hands. There are legitimate questions raised about how determined Trump has been to ignore evidence of Russia’s hacking operations prior to the election. But BuzzFeed did more to obscure and discredit these questions than Trump Tower could ever hope to. By publishing the uncorroborated dossier, BuzzFeed has associated the Russia issue with fantastical rumors and hearsay.

Its decision to post the document has to be considered another chapter in the ongoing saga of the media and Democrats losing their collective minds. If the election had gone the other way, it is hard to see BuzzFeed publishing a 35-page document containing unverified, lurid allegations about President-elect Hillary Clinton that it didn’t consider credible. This was an anti-Trump decision, pure and simple.

It created a media firestorm, but everyone should realize by now that media firestorms are Trump’s thing. They have been literally since the day he got into the presidential race. They suck the oxygen away from everything except the transfixing melodrama surrounding Donald Trump. The question is always, “How can he possibly escape this?” And at the center of attention, vindicating his own honor and that of his supporters by proxy, he always does.

cnn-fake


 

Fake economics at the Bank of England

January 6, 2017

Not just fake news. There is also quite a lot of fake science around and there always has been fake economics. Ancient alchemists had more rigour and integrity than many economists today. What characterises fake science and fake economics is that they start with a “politically correct” result and then “generate” the science (by cherry picking, ignoring inconvenient data and even fakery) as proof.

I have long thought that economics is  a “black art” and if anything a social study and a long way from being a science. Much of the status economics enjoys as a discipline is due to the existence of a Nobel prize (which was not wanted or instituted by Alfred Nobel himself). It was something dreamed up by the Swedish Central Bank to elevate the status of their own charlatans. Economists are usually very good at making hindcasts and developing theories about what has just happened but are remarkably useless in making forecasts. There is no economic theory that does not contain a large measure of political or religious advocacy.

The Bank of England economists who made dire predictions about the consequences of Brexit are now desperately trying to justify why they made such utter fools of themselves. But it has been the same with IMF and World Bank, EU and UN economists. Excellent at hindcasts and useless at forecasts.

The Telegraph: 

The Bank of England has admitted its dire warnings of a downturn in the wake of the Brexit vote were a “Michael Fish” moment and said that the economics profession was now in “crisis”.

Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist, said there was a “disconnect” between political warnings about Brexit and the “remarkably placid” state of the markets, adding that the worst predictions may turn out to be “just scare stories”.

He made the concession as new figures suggested Britain was the fastest growing of all advanced economies last year after the services sector defied gloomy forecasts to hit a 17-month high. 

The FTSE 100, the index of Britain’s biggest companies, closed on a record high for the sixth time in a row on Thursday – the longest run for 20 years.

At an event at the Institute for Government in London, Mr Haldane said that criticism of economists was a “fair cop” after they failed to predict the financial crisis and were wrong about the impact of the Brexit vote.

He compared their performance to Mr Fish’s infamous weather forecast in October 1987, in which he dismissed warnings that a hurricane was “on the way” but noted there could be high winds in Spain. 

Mr Haldane said: “Let’s go back to a different crisis, the crisis not in economic forecasting but weather forecasting. Michael Fish getting up: ‘Someone’s called me, there’s no hurricane coming but it will be windy in Spain.’

“It is very similar to the sort of reports central banks issued pre-crisis, that there is no hurricane coming but it might be very windy in sub-prime.”

When it was put to him that the Bank of England had forecast a “hurricane” after the Brexit vote which had not materialised, Mr Haldane replied: “It’s true, and again fair cop.” …… He said: “Right now there is a very interesting disconnect between what we read in the papers about the degree of political and policy uncertainty, which by any historical metric is at high levels, and what we have seen from the economy and financial markets, which have actually been remarkably placid. That disconnect cannot last forever. There will need to be a reconciliation between the two … Maybe some of the scarier stories politically will be seen to be just that – scare stories. ”

Economists have claimed to be “experts” but have failed to be of real use more often than not:

Economics Has Failed America

There are “positive” questions in economics that have mathematical answers — things that simply must be true — and then there are “normative” questions that amount to value judgments on points of policy. In economics classes, we teach the former and usually stop short when faced with the latter. This leaves a hole in any discussion of economic policy; students acquire first principles but rarely consider real-world applications, because to do so would presuppose a social or political point of view.

In the case of free trade and globalization, this omission has been disastrous. All first-year students of economics learn the theory of comparative advantage and gains from trade. They see a mathematical proof showing that when two countries trade goods or services, the benefits to the winners outweigh the costs to the losers. They are assured, correctly, that this result allows everyone to be made better off — or at least no worse off — by trade.

Yet the redistribution required to generate this broad improvement in living standards is hardly addressed, or sometimes even mentioned.

I can’t quite remember what set me off then, but I posted this rant some 3 years ago:

Economists are – by and large – religious or political advocates

A recent article …. got me to wondering why “Economists” and “Economics” – in spite of their gross and sometimes spectacular failures – have the high status they do. I come to the conclusion that “Economists” are – by and large – just religious or political advocates and “Economics” is no more than a study of social behaviour. …..

The practice of the black-magic that is considered economics – for it is certainly no science in the Popper sense – gets much of its cloak of respectability from the fact that the Nobel Prize exists (more correctly the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel).  

The Nobel prize in Economics should never have been created. In fact Nobel never wanted one and he is probably spinning in his grave as prize winners, one after another, prove – at best – to be mere historians and – at worst – religious or political zealots.  The prize adds more stature to the discipline of economics than it deserves. Almost every economic theorist has developed wonderful hindcasts but few – if any – have produced theories which can consistently make correct forecasts. …..

The political advocacy which is inherent in the theses promoted by Nobel Economics laureates have led to spectacular failures. Milton Friedman and his rabid monetarism gave rise to many of the crises today, Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen bank with their concept and practice of microcredit have exacerbated the risks of the debt trap into which so many small farmers have fallen. Krugman’s politics are essentially of the left and usually encourage profligacy. His analyses are more destructive than constructive and he has fault to find with almost every other theorist cutting across all political boundaries. He himself has yet to advocate any consistently successful theories. Amartya Sen focuses on analysing the “economics of poverty” but has nothing real to offer for its alleviation beyond platitudes representing his own political values from his ivory tower.

The world’s economies lurch from one crisis to the next but rarely are the crises foreseen. The only constant that can be observed is that growth – when it happens – leads to the improvement of the human condition but no “economic theory” has been able to deliver sustained growth. Growth – when it happens – achieves more for poverty alleviation than any social welfare program. Real wealth creation achieves more in achieving full employment or achieving social equality than merely redistributing a static pot of wealth.

graphic from Study Blue

graphic from Study Blue


The UN Swamp: French troops get away with sexual abuse while on UN duty

January 5, 2017

The UN tried to cover it up and it was only due to the revelations by a UN official which revealed the 90 cases of sexual harassment by French troops on UN duty. The whistle-blower was Anders Kompass who was director of field operations at the UN human rights office in Geneva. He was suspended and hounded by the “swamp” of the rotten UN bureaucracy and though he was exonerated he resigned from the UN last June. The predatory sexual behaviour of the French troops was beyond disgusting.

NYTimes:

For five months, an unknown number of people in the French forces, sent to protect civilians from the violence tearing the country apart, forced boys to perform oral sex on them, according to testimonies collected by the United Nations. The boys, aged 9 to 15, said they had sometimes been lured with the promise of military rations.

Now, nearly a year after the allegations came to light, no one has been charged, let alone punished.

It is now reported by AP that the French who were investigating their own troops have now decided that nobody will be prosecuted.

No charges in inquiry of child sex abuse by French troops

The Paris prosecutor’s office says an investigation into alleged child sexual abuse by French soldiers in Central African Republic has concluded without anyone being charged. Spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Leroux said Thursday the investigation formally ended last month. She declined to elaborate.

French newspaper Le Monde reported that the decision stemmed from insufficient “elements” to press charges. Several boys told United Nations investigators they were sexually abused by French troops in the Central African Republic capital, Bangui, in May and June 2014. Fourteen French soldiers reportedly were suspected of being involved. The sexual abuse allegedly took place in or near a camp for displaced people near M’Poko airport.

The French defense ministry did not immediately comment.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said he understands that it’s now up to the prosecutor to decide whether to go forward, following the submission of results from the investigative judges. “So obviously we’ll keep an eye on this,” Dujarric said. “But as we’ve said, it is the responsibility of member states to fully investigate and hopefully prosecute crimes. The fight against impunity for these horrendous actions has to be a partnership between the U.N. and member states.”

Under Ban Ki-Moon the swamp at the UN became particularly murky and rotten. Not just the cholera which the UN introduced to Haiti killing almost 10,000 but also financial wrongdoings and sexual predation. In every case the UN – as an institution – has tried to cover up. Probably less than 10% of wrongdoing at the UN ever comes to light.

There isn’t just a swamp in Washington. There is one much larger and much more rotten at the UN.


Toyota will need to revise their Mexico plans as Trump tweets drive news

January 5, 2017

Trump’s tweets are driving the news.

And now he sets his sights on Toyota’s plans to build in Mexico and export to the US.

He tweeted this a few minutes ago:

20170105 -- 1910CET

20170105 — 1910CET

The Hill: 

Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said President-elect Donald Trump’s tweets direct the news cycle.

“[It’s] because that’s what’s going to drive the news,” he said Wednesday during a panel at the University of Chicago, speaking with former President Obama adviser David Axelrod. “Whatever he tweets, he is going to drive the news.”

When Axelrod asked if Spicer feels “a certain sense of dread” about Trump’s posts on Twitter, the former Republican National Committee strategist responded: “No, but I do look there first.”

Spicer cited Trump’s tweet criticizing House Republicans Tuesday as evidence of the president-elect’s power.

“You saw the House vote the other day,” he told Axelrod, who served as chief strategist for Obama’s two presidential campaigns and a senior adviser in his White House.

“[Trump] sends a single tweet out, you know, that the House was not focused on tax reform and healthcare and instead was focused on the Office of [Congressional] Ethics,” Spicer said of the OCE. “Immediately, it’s withdrawn.”

The president-elect on Tuesday criticized House Republicans for prioritizing a plan to weaken the independent ethics panel over other major issues.

“Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance,” he tweeted.

I expect Toyota will modify their plans.


 

Doubtful if NAFTA has been good for US trade or US jobs

January 4, 2017

That NAFTA has provided benefits for Mexico and Canada is evident.

Certainly volume of trade has increased sharply since NAFTA was established in 1994. But for the US the trade deficit has also ballooned. Some US jobs have shifted to Mexico. And whether NAFTA has created any real, net benefits for the US economy is more than a little doubtful.

from Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies, Spring 2014

from Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies, Spring 2014

When Donald Trump castigates US industry for shifting jobs to Mexico, he has a point.


 

Trump starts governing, by tweet and before assuming office!

January 3, 2017

Donald Trump has found a new tool, a new weapon which seems to be a remarkably effective way of getting a favourable response.

Without debate and without even being in office.

The Tweet.

CBS: House Republicans decide to strip ethics change in emergency meeting

House Republicans agreed Tuesday to withdraw the rules change that would have stripped the chamber’s outside ethics watchdog of its independence and power after heavy public backlash and tweets of disapproval from President-elect Donald Trump.

Republican lawmakers agreed by unanimous consent in a closed-door emergency meeting Monday to strip the rules change from their overall rules package that the lower chamber is scheduled to vote on later in the day, according to a GOP aide.

This came as the new Congress was supposed to gavel in, and just two hours after Mr. Trump tweeted that congressional Republicans shouldn’t be wasting their time with a major ethics change.

trump-ethics-tweets

On Monday night, a majority of Republicans voted to rename the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to the Office of Congressional Complaint Review. The House Ethics Committee–whose members are lawmakers–will now oversee that outside office’s work.

Under the change proposed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, the outside office would not have been able to investigate anonymous tips, it couldn’t have had a spokesperson and it would have been barred from releasing its findings to the public. Members of the House Ethics Committee would also have been able to stop the office’s investigations.

Two tweets and he got the House Republicans to backtrack. In two tweets he manged to do what Paul Ryan could not. Note that Trump gave the House Republicans who had secretly voted for the rule change, a face saving way to back off by terming the ethics watchdog as possibly “unfair”.

It was a negotiation by twitter and a successful one at that.


 

Noted in passing 2nd January 2017 ( Fake news, fake science and other trivia)

January 2, 2017
  1. White House fails to make case that Russian hackers tampered with election
  2. Evidence of Bias in Studies of Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness in Elderly Patients

  3. Russia denies CNN report on closure of Anglo-American School in Moscow

  4. Why Fake Data When You Can Fake a Scientist?

  5. “Fake News” And How The Washington Post Rewrote Its Story On Russian Hacking Of The Power Grid

  6. Planet Earth II ‘a disaster for world’s wildlife’ says rival nature producer

  7. Cologne Police Screen Hundreds Of North Africans, As Migrants Storm Spanish Enclave In Africa

  8. Aide: When Trump tweets, he gets results

  9. Academia’s Broken, so Why Defend Academic Freedom?
  10. EXXON’S 2040 OUTLOOK: FOSSIL FUELS AREN’T GOING ANYWHERE
Source: Exxon 2017 Outlook for Energy

Source: Exxon 2017 Outlook for Energy